“I knew you would come.”
Daniel could only repeat:
“I’m sorry, son. I’m so sorry.”
That day, the three of us walked through Paris together.
No one talked about illness.
No one talked about time.
That evening, back at the hotel, Leo was already in bed when he called me over.
“Mom?”
“Yes, sweetheart?”
“Do you know what I’m going to ask Santa for next year?”
My whole body froze.
“What?”
He smiled.
“For the three of us to come here again.”
For a moment, I turned toward the window so he wouldn’t see my eyes.
Because my child was talking about next year.
And I didn’t know how much time we had been given.
Then I walked back to him, kissed his forehead, and said:
“Then starting tomorrow, we have to collect as many memories as we possibly can.”
That photograph was taken that day.
To most people, it is simply a beautiful picture of a mother and her son in front of the Eiffel Tower.
To me, it is something else entirely.
It is the day I finally understood something.
We spend our whole lives saying:
“Someday we’ll do it.”
“We’ll go later.”
“There will be time.”
But no one has ever promised us that “later.”
Sometimes, the most important day is today.
